Louise O'Keeffe: A woman vindicated - Why make it so very hard for victims?

Louise O’Keeffe deserves our respect, admiration, and congratulations, though she would prefer it had she never been obliged to make her cause, her decades-long fight against stone-walling officialdom, so very public.

She joins that precious and admirable minority who fought the system and because of her conviction and courage — and her loyal and very able legal team — was vindicated.

That her ordeal, and the agony suffered by thousands more Irish people in similar positions, was exacerbated by an officialdom more concerned with damage limitation than the pressing human obligations arising from the fact that she was abused by a State employee in a State institution — albeit under the management of local clergy — is another chilling reminder of how very dark, how very disturbing this country was for very much of its history.